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Serial killer Ted Bundy has been connected to another murder 52 years after a hunter found a teenager’s body in the woods.
Bundy killed at least 30 women and girls in multiple states in the 1970s, and many more escaped or survived with injuries. He has been dead since 1989 but his victim tally continues to grow due to advances in DNA testing.
On Tuesday, the Summit County prosecutor in Utah said that detectives have concluded that Bundy was responsible for killing 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith in 1974, a death that had long been listed as a cold case.
Aside from DNA evidence, Smith’s death had the hallmarks of Bundy’s “pattern, motive, means and opportunity,” Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson said at a news conference.
Investigators were able to close the cold case by making crucial DNA connections between Smith and Laura Aime, another Bundy victim whose case was resolved last April in Utah County.

“This case demonstrates the importance of preserving evidence,” Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said.
Bundy was executed in 1989 by electric chair in Florida for the 1978 murders of two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University.
Ted Bundy’s eerie confession before execution
Before his execution, a homicide detective out of Salt Lake County interviewed Bundy about the murders of Smith and Aime, and the disappearances and possible homicides of Nancy Wilcox, Debby Kent and Nancy Baird.
Bundy admitted to killing Kent and Wilcox but denied killing Baird, according to local Utah news station KTVX. Bundy said he had a hard time “placing the names” when it came to Aime and Smith and was unable to remember encountering either of them.
In April, Utah authorities announced that Bundy was responsible for killing Aime, who disappeared on Halloween in 1974.
A highly similar DNA profile linked to Bundy was found in evidence obtained from Smith’s autopsy, Utah County Sgt. Mike Reynolds said on Tuesday. Officials have been in touch with Smith’s next of kin, none of whom still live in the area.
“With every case closure, may we stomp the memory of Ted Bundy out,” Reynolds said.
In his final days, Bundy made a series of confessions, including details regarding crimes previously unknown to law enforcement. Not all of those cases have been verified.
Besides Florida and Utah, Bundy had victims in Colorado, Idaho and Washington state. Officials are sill working to solve the death of 16-year-old Wilcox, another likely victim in Utah.
